Like this:

I had been waiting all day, watching the pawn shop. Instructive. Then he came round the corner, half drunk. The look of him. An embarrassment. On whose shoulder will I rest my head, coming from a situation like this? He had money.

Melancholy God, how long had she been standing there looking like her uncle with her head on her shoulder. She’ll get curvature of the spine if she doesn’t watch out. An embarrassment standing there. Wants money.

I smelled he had been drinking now, but I learned from him how to get what we need. Wait awhile, I thought, and I talk something out of him. Just wait awhile. He gave me $5.00. It was short shrift for a long day, watching the pawn shop for hours. He’ll leave us first chance he gets. He says so, but we are still stuck with him. We are worse off for him but if he died? Even worse. Watching all day. He said he got ten bucks but I know he has more. Can’t he look money somewhere? Well, he is funny, my dad.

I was not drinking, then. Who taught her to talk like that? Insolent pack of bitches. They’ll get short shrift and a long day from me. I’ll leave them. They’d be happy to see me dead, curse their souls. She should watch that pawn shop, learn something. Told her I got $10.00 from Jack Power. Where am I going to look for money? It’s not like it’s just lying around in the gutters waiting to be picked up. She got three more quarters out of me. Skinny thing needs to eat something. I’ll be home with her soon. My girl.

A series of stretch suv’s (one bearing flags) enters a highway cleared of cars.

After the funeral Tom Kernan hovered near me. Both converts. In the same boat in other ways too. Treacherous to be the only ones. Our ill-kept secret. Is he a mason? They have better funerals. I wanted him to speak to me and he said: I ah uh weoowection ah uh wife — youcheg a man imok heaw. Well damn that to hell. Once you are dead you are dead. The resurrection and the life; the last day idea. There’s a rabbit hole for you, hard to come forth from that one. Get up! Last day! Rise and shine. Then all of the dearly returned digging around for livers and kidneys and inmost hearts. Find damn all of yourself in the morning. Left my heart behind. No hearts in there these days. Removed first. Broken out, then sewn up. How many broken hearts buried with Paddy Dignam? None. Inmost heart. Kernan’s maybe, but Paddy’s? No touching that. Touched Simon’s, he broke down when we were near Mary’s grave. Simon said she’s in heaven if there is a heaven. But she’s better where she is.